Complicating Race

Abstract

Much research on race and sentencing utilizes broad racial categories to estimate the effect of race on sentencing outcomes; however, more nuanced conceptualizations of race have begun to appear in the literature. Specifically, a small but growing body of literature has assessed the role of discrimination based on Black stereotypicality of facial features, or Afrocentric facial feature bias, on sentencing outcomes for convicted males. By using Department of Corrections data from Black females and males incarcerated in Oregon, paired with experimentally derived facial feature ratings, this study extends past research by conducting both sex and race analyses in a new locale. These analyses are theoretically contextualized in feature-trait stereotyping and the focal concerns perspective—two previously unrelated literatures. The regression of sentence length on Afrocentric facial features, other extralegal factors, and legally relevant factors suggests that Afrocentric facial features do not explain sentence length for females. Afrocentricity predicts sentence length for males in the univariate and extralegal models, but significance is diminished with the inclusion of legally relevant variables. In interactional models, the sentence lengths of Black females and males do not vary in relation to one another either before or after the inclusion of legal factors. These findings are discussed in light of sentencing mechanisms in the state of Oregon, possible stereotype bias at earlier stages in the court process, and the racialized nature of offense histories and seriousness ratings.